Do You Ever Wake a Sleeping Baby?

Answer this question:

Do you ever wake a sleeping baby?

My mother-in-law would answer that question with an emphatic NO! Never! It makes sense, right? Why would you wake a sleeping baby? They are so darn cute, and to disturb that is unconscionable.

Until you have to do it, that is. I totally agree with my mother-in-law, as much as humanly possible, never ever never wake a sleeping baby.

But, there are certain times when we have found ourselves with no other options but to wake our sleeping baby.

It nearly breaks our hearts, which means Kelsey can't physically do it, so that leaves me to tenderly lift our baby out of her crib, trying to keep her alseep in the process.

It's kind of like playing operation. A steady hand is an essential requirement.

When We Wake Our Sleeping Baby

• Fire. We would not hesitate to wake Rooney in case of emergency and evacuate the premises. Same thing with a zombie apocalypse. We would be out! At least we have a minivan to live in.

• Weight gain. The Rooster lost some weight when she was born, and we were instructed by our doctor to wake Rooney every four hours to eat, even in the middle of the night. Just until she was back up to birth weight. Those first few weeks were tough.

• Life group. Most Tuesday nights we are at someone else's house for life group. We take our pack 'n' play and set it up in the darkest room we can find, and Rooney sleeps for a few hours while we fellowship with friends. We have to wake her up to head home, because so far nobody has offered to keep her overnight. ;) We believe life group is important enough to us to throw her off once a week.

• Schedule. There have been just a handful of days when Rooney has slept in past 7 a.m., when we need to drop her off at day care to head to work. This is the least fun. But isn't a schedule important for a baby?

There isn't a day that goes by that we don't question what we are doing as parents. It affects Kelsey more than me, but we try to tell ourselves that we are making the best decision with the information that we have at that moment. Our parents weren't able to Google anything. How in the world did we ever survive?

No use in beating ourselves up about these types of things, but sometimes it just seems so wrong to wake a sleeping baby. Kids are resilient, so I think Rooney will be OK...right?

In what instances would you wake a sleeping baby?